Now, what's wrong with that? Well, whenever you hear the name "American Enterprise Institute" your bullshit meter should start twitching just from general principles. These guys are one of America's best known Conservative think tanks, and have, for example, led the charge against meaningful climate change legislation south of the border.

But, again, there's a more specific story to be told, and a strange one too.

Roger Bate's career as a think tank scientist extends back several decades, but his most notable exploit is the creation of Africa Fighting Malaria. Put briefly, and as Mr. Bate put it fairly explicitly to Philip Morris back in 1998, the group was created to be a front generating a counter-discourse intended to discourage further regulation of the tobacco industry. To quote Adam Sarvana, in one of the very few MSM articles I've seen written on Mr. Bate:

Okay, so how does Michael Ignatieff play into all of this? Well, in 2003 then he was director of The Carr Center, and when a stink was raised over Mr. Attaran's anonymous funding sources (which were thought at the time to be linked to "Big Pharma"), he was forced to look into the matter and respond:

In other words, Iggy investigated the source of Attaran's funding, and despite its dubious pedigree, took the money.

Now, I don't know what this says about Attaran's claim re Afghan prisoner transfers. Probably nothing. And I would say in both his and Iggy's defense that Bate and the AFM have conned a lot of smart people. James Lovelock comes to mind. Bate is not at all like Marc Morano, who looks greasy and sweaty even when he isn't doing anything evil. No, nobody's even heard of Bate; he's smooth and silent, like a barracuda swimming through the ocean at night.

But, Iggy, a word of advice. When anything associated with the American Enterprise Institute comes along waving money--or anyone connected with "think tanks" that have names like "The Liberty Foundation" or "The Freedom initiative"--run away. They're flogging bullshit.

And if Roger Bate gets within a mile of you, run away screaming.

PS. Attaran responds to some of the allegations re Iggy's defense of his funding here. Although nobody seems to have raised the "big tobacco" connection as yet.

PPPS. It has been pointed out to me that my original title suggests that Mr. Attaran's current position, and his research into the Afghan detainee issue, was funded by Africa Fighting Malaria. That was not the intent and I have changed the title to remove the implication. In fact, as I note, the two issues are not connected other than I found out about the second while reading about the first.

The Bate end of it I've been following for a year or so now. The Amir/Iggy connection was a WTF! moment, which I thought worthy of writing up. The reason for the piece is that the coming together of all these threads is bizarre and interesting. That's all. No particular animus towards Iggy these days on my part(I would say just so if there was). Bit embarrasing for him and that's unfortunate.

For those of you who don't understand the science behind why you don't do mass spraying of DDT to fight malaria, here's quick primer.

Yes, mass spraying of DDT messes up the food web, but that's not the reason why it shouldn't be done (though it is a reason).

DDT is also an effective repellent, that is, insects will avoid it where possible. So it gets sprayed on house walls in high-risk malaria areas to drive mosquitoes away, keeping the people within the homes safer.

DDT, as we know, does kill insects quite well, but populations of insects quickly become immune to DDT. Mass spraying only works for a few years, and then DDT is useless, not just as mosquito killer, but also as a repellant.

So to keep it working as a repellent, mass spraying is to be avoided.

By advocating mass spraying, as a byproduct of their actions these propagandists are actually seeking to cause what they accuse environmentalists of causing: the deaths of millions.

Iggy's statement: Due diligence by both the Carr Center and the University was done on this individual. Of course, we cannot provide you with a name because of our respect for donor requests for anonymity, but - with regard to your specific concerns - you have our assurances that we know this individual's identity, that we have done due diligence upon the source of the money, and that it is not from the pharmaceutical industry nor from any source that would involve a conflict of interest.

One more possibility, which I raise just for the sake of completeness, is that that a front was used between Phillip Morris and Africa Fighting Malaria. Note that Iggy refers to an "individual's identity", which would be an odd formulation if referring to an institutional donor.

The effects of DDT are quite well known, and there is a reason it was pretty much banned world-wide in the 1960's. Besides there are much more effective (but more expensive) insecticides that, unlike DDT, do not persist and pass up the food chain.

CanadianSense - not long ago you were berating the grits for pushing for an election - now you insult them for not wanting one. Fuck Off and stay on your own blog!

I just have a quick question for you but couldn't find an email so had to resort to this. I am a progressive blogger and the owner of the mahablog. Please email me back at barbaraobrien@maacenter.org when you get a chance. Thanks.

A few of the documents by or about Roger Bate in the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library can be found here: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/action/search/expert?p=1&q=%22roger+bate%22&asf=ddu&asd=&fd=1&sf=&_rs=&ps=10&_ef=&ef=on&sd=&ed=&c=at&c=ba&c=bw&c=ct&c=da&c=ll&c=lm&c=mg&c=mm&c=pm&c=py&c=re&c=rj&c=ti&c=ub&c=us.

" By advocating mass spraying, as a byproduct of their actions these propagandists are actually seeking to cause what they accuse environmentalists of causing: the deaths of millions. "

I guess you mean that by advocating DDT spraying, Attaran or AFM will help cause the deaths of millions by either direct poisoning of people by DDT or by inducing resistance to DDT in mosquitoes (and possibly other pesticides).

This is hardly to the point. Attaran's views on DDT spraying are not unknown, are published in numerous places, are nuanced, and did get press time in Canada and the US. He isn't seeking the deaths of millions or the willy-nilly spraying DDT. He advocates the DDT continue to be allowed for malarial control (not agricultural pest control).

Attaran also notes, correctly, that some environmental groups advocate complete bans on DDT production without considering the effect it might have on DDT availability for malarial control, and that some environmental groups advocate a complete ban on DDT production even for malarial control. He disagrees with those stances, and he fought those ideas to ensure that global treaties limiting DDT included only agricultural bans, and not bans on its use for malaria control. There was a real risk that such a ban would be enacted, since this ban was promoted by many environmental groups.

Attaran takes other controversial positions. For example, he has been in the press recently because he is a critic of the idea that the patenting and cost of AIDS drugs is greatly affecting their lack of use in Africa.

Generally, I'd say he is more an opponent of woolly-headed thinking when it comes to third world development aid strategies. After-all, in Canada, whether our aid strategies are good or bad will truthfully have little effect at all on our country, and so their is a much greater incentive to tailor them to avoid controversy, rather than maximize their effectiveness.

"How strange. I have not seen what is written at that blog, but if the assertion is that I received tobacco industry funding while at Harvard, that is completely untrue. I am sadly accustomed to such shoot-the-messenger nonsense from the Tory blogs, which have been particularly uncivilized as of late, but to be told this is on a Liberal blog comes as a surprise. I would hope people calm down and learn to focus less on the messenger, than the message at hand, which concerns the government’s compliance with the law of armed conflict insofar as the Afghan detainees, and compliance with Canada’s constitution insofar as Parliamentary documents. "

Although this is a WWF document, perhaps it doesn't fully reflect the WWF's present position.

At any rate, why not email and ask Attaran about the stance of environmental orgs and DDT, and the history and evolution of environmentalist organisations positions over time. Especially, some of the positions held by various orgs today may not be the ones they held when treaties governing DDT use were negotiated.

1) ever heard of Academic freedom?Iggy was not Attaran's superior. Iggy didn't say "yea" or "nea" to Attaran's research. There is no reasonable way you could believe that there is a debt shared between the two. In the case in question, it was Iggy's job to only evaluate that the controls Harvard had agreed to in governing funding of research were adhered to. Which he seemed to do, impartially.

2)Attaran is nobody's puppet. He frequently takes positions that are, to say the least, unpopular with nearly everyone in power and, probably, the general population. He is also argumentative and dogged.

3)Attaran has been pushing to obtain and publicize info about the happenings with regards to emprisonment policies during the whole "war on terror", well before Iggy became Liberal leader.